A Steam Engine Pilgrimage by Anthony Burton

Author:Anthony Burton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2017-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

I wandered off for a tour of inspection. There is always a tremendous amount to see on such an occasion and you have to decide whether to dash off to the main attractions or build up towards them gently. Across the parade ring I could see a row of chimneys, each thrusting its dark cloud towards the sky, and the lure proved irresistible. Forty engines were on display, each with its own character and idiosyncrasies. The whole range of steam was there. I left the gaggle of rollers, a dark little group with not much in the way of frippery, and made the acquaintance of an engine which was a complete contrast. Maid Marian, a showman’s engine of 1926, was built by Fosters of Lincoln, a prolific manufacturer of these ornate creatures. They also have a more sombre achievement to their credit, for they built the very first British tank to join the army in 1915. If you check the smokebox door you can still see a tank emblem, but nothing else suggests the slightest of military connections.

Maid Marian, based need one say in Nottingham, kept herself aloof from the rest of the engines. They stood like guardsmen on parade, and like guardsmen they were determined to look their best when the parade started. You soon realise that a steam engine is very much a family favourite, with parents and children alike washing down paintwork and polishing brass, and what an amazing amount of brass there is on some of these engines. Long before polishing time arrives, however, the mundane, grubbier work will have been done: cleaning out ashpans and grates, and flushing out the boiler, which was a weekly operation when an engine was working full time. There are valves and injectors to be checked, linkages to be oiled. These are all part of the regular maintenance of a steam engine, but behind that usually lies years of hard slog to bring a machine from the scrapyard to the show ring.

Groups tend to form around certain engines. Some go for the massively powerful machines, like a pair of big Fowler ploughing engines – a left-hand engine and a right-hand engine as they are known, depending on which side the cable drum is fixed. There is no attempt at prettification here. They were built for use on the farm, not out on the highway under the public gaze, so there is no need for fancy details and there is not much elegance in their outline. The same could be said of a mobile steam crane, its long neck stretching beyond the line of engines. The steamrollers are necessarily ponderous beasts, but they can shine as brightly as the grandest showman’s engine, and the knowledgeable can be found grouped around the oldest engine in the ground. This is a tandem steamroller, probably the last example of its kind. The conventional roller has the typical big, heavy cylinder at the front and a pair of wide wheels behind. But here, as the name suggests, there is a narrow roller fore and aft.

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